Since the 1990s, the political context for school reform has been characterized by both the accountability movement and market-driven reform movements.
This has created high-stakes consequences for schools.
Competition among schools will foster educational improvement and more responsiveness to students and their families
High stakes consequences for failure, as measured through myriad accountability mechanisms, are assumed to promote more responsive, higher quality educational experiences for students.
“Forces that compel schools to compete for students, while intended to drive innovation and improvement, can be diverted instead into promotional efforts to improve a school’s (or district’s) competitive position”
“and less time and energy is spent on pedagogic and curricular substance”
Work hard to attract middle-class youth and other students who will ultimately position the schools better in the marketplace
This system of privilege and hierarchy among teachers appeared linked to political tensions in the school. Referring to the extra privileges and opportunities some teachers was repeatedly given.
More privileged teachers were given positions of leadership, classroom resources (e.g., computers, technology), and a significant amount of support from outside resources.
Resources funneled to teachers that are considered “effective” and denied to other teachers and their classrooms
2)
Cooper, Bruce, and E. Randall. "Educational Policy." Academic Seach Premier. EBSCO,
Jan. 2008. Web. 11 Dec. 2010. Link
“Privatization” of public education turns education into a more market-driven system
This leads to the deflection of students and public tax funds away from public schools.
This shift of “confidence” away from public institutions and government programs and toward the private sector is often referred to as privatization
Privatization poses a threat to public monopolies like public education through the channeling of public monies out of the hands and control of government agencies and into the control of private enterprises
The key to privatization is choice , the driving dynamic of empowering clients—the families—to select a school; this creates fear that if schools cannot compete and do not perform, clients can leave, making their preferences known and acting on them. Fear of failure and of loss of students, according to this belief, is the driver for reform.
All schools will be forced to become more attractive to students, more cost-efficient, and more accountable if they are to remain competitive.
If a school fails to accomplish these goals, students will leave that school and attend competing institutions that provide a better education. This creates the incentive for a school to offer innovative services, quality facilities, and excellent academics; for if it does not, its competitor a few blocks away will certainly land more students.
The market has ways of ensuring that superior products are rewarded and inferior products weeded out. A competitive marketplace for education would be no different.
Choice advantages the savvier, the richer, and the more experienced, and hurts those who are not used to playing the market as education consumers and clients.
Charter schools provide competition to both public and private schools
Charter schools enjoy the immense benefit of a sure supply of funding from the public sector and are able to customize their educational programs to attract a wide variety of students.
These are only some of the reasons for their success
Private provider will come along and cream off the best students or fulfill a niche in the market that the more regulated public school cannot fill as easily.
Siphoning off the best and the brightest (who may also be among the richest) has been a fear as public schools seek to raise standards
Worked against the traditional notion of the neighborhood school as well [charter schools / magnet schools]
Public schools cannot compete. E.g. teaching of religious values is one market niche in which public schools cannot compete due to legal constraints
3)
McLaughlin, Margaret, and Lauren Rhim. "Accountability Frameworks and Children with Disabilities." Academic Seach Premier. EBSCO, Mar. 2007. Web. 11 Dec. 2010. Link
Market-driven frameworks infuse traditional market forces, such as competition and choice, which in theory serve as incentives for performance.
A key assumption of market-driven frameworks is that if consumers (i.e., students and their parents) can choose a school, as opposed to having to attend the school in the neighborhood school zone, then schools will compete for students by striving to offer a superior educational product
Marketization : Imposing economic and competitive logic of the free market on social welfare
Market-driven reform combine traditional market forces, such as choice and competition that serve as incentives for high performance
If consumers (students/parents) can choose the school that they attend, then schools will compete for students by supplying a superior education.
This pressure and competition ensures high-quality education.
4) Jordan, Jennifer D. "R.I.’s Charter Schools Ponder Their Purpose." Providence Journal. 15 Nov. 2010. Web. 14 Dec. 2010. Link.
1) Choice
2) Competition
3) Charter schools
Readings
Notes on sources:
1)
Niesz, Tricia. "Urban Education." Academic Seach Premier. EBSCO, 2010. Web. 11
Dec. 2010. Link
2)
Cooper, Bruce, and E. Randall. "Educational Policy." Academic Seach Premier. EBSCO,
Jan. 2008. Web. 11 Dec. 2010. Link
3)
McLaughlin, Margaret, and Lauren Rhim. "Accountability Frameworks and Childrenwith Disabilities." Academic Seach Premier. EBSCO, Mar. 2007. Web. 11 Dec. 2010. Link
4) Jordan, Jennifer D. "R.I.’s Charter Schools Ponder Their Purpose." Providence Journal. 15 Nov. 2010. Web. 14 Dec. 2010. Link.